Op-Ed | Working poor deserve break on bridge toll

Darryl Owens

The long and too-often divisive effort to build bridges over the Ohio River has just taken what may be the ugliest turn yet.

The people who live in Louisville but work in low-wage jobs across the river may not know it yet, but a $500-a-year tax increase is heading their way. (Let's face it: The bridge tolls being called for are taxes.) The Louisvillian who cleans rooms in a Jeffersonville hotel will have less money for groceries. The worker who crosses the river each morning to wash dishes in Clarksville will find it harder to make car payments. The warehouse employee who uses the bridge daily to work the second shift will have less money for Christmas presents.

The decision recently announced by Kentucky and Indiana transportation officials to deny relief from future tolls to the working poor who use bridges to get to work is divisive, backwards and heartless. It defies all standards of basic social justice.

The Ohio River Bridges Project missed a big opportunity to find some common ground among all the coalitions with differing views on the bridges. No matter where you stand on whether our community needs two new bridges, we should all agree that poverty-wage workers shouldn't have their paychecks stretched even further simply so they can commute to work each day.

It should have been an easy call. Instead, bridge officials are on the verge of sending a plan to Federal Highway Administration that will likely cost the working poor who commute over the river an additional $500 per year once the bridges are built and tolls are in place. This reinforces the impression that the well-being of our most economically vulnerable families is being ignored by elitist decision makers.

The Ohio River Bridges Project report does not build credibility for itself when it states that mitigating toll costs on low-income workers would be an administrative and enforcement challenge. If an entity overseeing the construction of multibillion-dollar marvels of modern engineering thinks easing the tolling burden on the poor is too difficult, it shows their priorities obviously are not with the people.

In fact, a simple plan to ensure the working poor aren't hit with tolls is already available. It's contained in legislation we sponsored in this year's session of the Kentucky General Assembly and will be proposed again next year. The plan, contained in House Bill 129 of the 2013 legislative session, would offer an annual reimbursement of toll costs to anyone eligible for the federal Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) whose job requires a commute over the Ohio River.

The Ohio River Bridges report also fumbled by not proposing that TARC buses be exempt from tolls. We're already seeing that budget cuts in public transportation are hurting our most vulnerable citizens who rely on buses to get to get to work, the grocery and doctors' appointments. Squeezing those programs even further would be unconscionable.

Fortunately, there's still a chance to fix the Bridges' Authority's badly flawed report before it's finalized by the Federal Highway Administration.

Citizens have until July 26 to offer comments online on the draft report before it's submitted to the Federal Highway Association. Anyone who wishes to review the report or offer comments can visit www.kyinbridges.com.

People can also offer comments at two open house meetings on the Ohio River Bridges Project. A July 22 meeting will be held from 4 to 7 p.m. at the Holiday Inn Clarksville, 505 Marriott Drive, Clarksville, Ind.; and a July 23 meeting will be held from 4 to 7 p.m. at the Kentucky Center for African-American Heritage, 1701 Muhammad Ali Blvd. in Louisville.

Advocates for low-wage workers haven't been heard yet by the bridge officials. But we still have an opportunity to make our voices heard. We encourage everyone who cares about economic justice and the well-being of our area to speak out now and show it's not too late to include more fairness and justice in bridge-building plans.

REP. JIM WAYNE

District 35 -

REP. MARY LOU MARZIAN

District 34 -

REP. DARRYL T. OWENS

District 43 -

REP. JONI JENKINS

District 44 -

REP. REGINALD MEEKS

District 42 -

Louisville -

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Op-Ed | Working poor deserve break on bridge toll

The long and too-often divisive effort to build bridges over the Ohio River has just taken what may be the ugliest turn yet.